Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks.
A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations (e.g., eNodeBs) that can support communication for a number of user equipments (UEs). A UE may communicate with a base station via the downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the base station.
To improve the performance of wireless communications, it may be desirable to aggregate component carriers (CCs) when communicating with a UE in order to increase the bandwidth, and thereby increase the bitrates. When such aggregation involves component carriers that originate from a same eNodeB or from collocated base stations (e.g., eNodeBs and/or access points (APs)), it may be possible to coordinate the operation of the aggregated component carriers through internal communications in the eNodeB or through fast connections between the collocated base stations. In other scenarios, however, the ability to coordinate the aggregation of component carriers becomes more challenging.
In view of the foregoing, it may be understood that there may be significant problems and shortcomings associated with current carrier aggregation technology.